Case against Altai oppositionist for VKontakte post

In April 2014, a case was initiated in Barnaul under Art. 282 of the Criminal Code in relation to the well-known Altai oppositionist Andrey Teslenko.

In mid-April 2014, it became known that a criminal cases under Part 1 of Art. 282 of the Criminal Code (inciting hatred and enmity) against a known Altai opposition leader Andrey Teslenko.

Teslenko was searched, during which computers were confiscated, then the oppositionist was interrogated.

According to him, the case was opened for a post he posted on his page in the social network "VKontakte".

Since Teslenko reported this on the same page and gave a link to the post, we had the opportunity to familiarize ourselves with the content of the material that became reason for initiating a case.

In our opinion, the text titled "Russophobia Post", which inspired by Ukrainian events, written extremely sharply and, indeed, has a distinctly anti-Russian (in the ethnic sense) orientation (and the publisher's explanations in comments that "Rusnya is a state of mind", etc., are perceived as an attempt excuses). This material contains many insults to Russians and a call for ethnic discrimination - a call to the Ukrainian authorities not to give Russian citizenship.

However, we believe that the prosecution of Teslenko under Art. 282 UK is controversial for several reasons.

Firstly, the post did not have a very large audience, but it must be admitted that this is typical for most sentences for Internet publications.

Second, the post was a complete repost from another page. However, apparently, Teslenko fully or partially agreed with the text, at least he did not express a different attitude.

Thirdly, it remains unclear for us whether calls for discrimination should be prosecuted if they were made on the territory of Russia, but addressed to the authorities of another country and non-Russian citizens are also proposed to be discriminated against.

Sources

• Altai oppositionist accused of inciting ethnic hatred // New Kuzbass. 2014. April 17.